Giving

We are very grateful for support from our alumni and friends, and from the community at large. Your generosity makes it possible for us to embellish the department’s activities in tremendously important ways: for example, sponsoring visiting lectures by scholars and creative writers; sending students on trips to conferences and supporting their research; recruiting outstanding new faculty to our department; honoring our stellar graduates with awards for their achievements. Your gifts enable our faculty and students to connect our classrooms with the world at large. Donations help us to deal with our present needs, and to plan for the future. Thank you!

In Their Own Words

Ashley McNeil

...As a graduate student, I have been mentored and supported by professors who take my somewhat non-traditional scholarship and academic inquiry seriously and who are not hesitant to rigorously challenge me...

Unfortunately, our department doesn't have any scholarships that a student can simply apply for.

The Eleanor M. Pratt Scholarship is given to a junior- or senior-level English major nominated by an English Department faculty member. Nominees submit 1-2 page statements for a competition, and the Undergraduate Committee for the Department of English selects one winner yearly based on these statements. We encourage juniors and seniors to ask one of their English professors to submit their name when the call goes out for nominations in January.

The Scholarship Endowment in Creative Writing is awarded to an outstanding applicant to the graduate program in creative writing, upon his or her acceptance to the creative writing program. A student’s application to the graduate program in creative writing serves automatically as an application for this scholarship.

The Virginia Spencer Carr Scholarship is awarded to an outstanding prose writer on her acceptance to graduate study in our creative writing program. A student’s application to the graduate program in creative writing serves automatically as an application for this scholarship.

Often, transfer students will experience Prerequisite/Test Score errors in GoSOLAR when they try to register. Transfer students who have taken freshman composition classes and/or sophomore survey classes (British Literature, American Literature, and/or World Literature) at other universities must seek transfer credit from the Department of English in order to have these blocks lifted. Contact Dr. Angela Hall Godsey to learn how to receive transfer credit and get the registration blocks lifted.

Please remember that not all internships will qualify for English 4500 because English internships should be related to the discipline of English in some way. Also, we have a process that students must follow before doing the internship. For more information, contact Dr. Malinda Snow or, if your internship will be in a secondary school, contact Dr. Melissa McLeod.

Please note that you must be in your final or second-to-last semester in order to be eligible for the Directed Readings course.

To request an ENGL 4999 course, first find a professor who agrees to work with you on an independent project. Together, the two of you will fill out the form found at this link: http://www.cas.gsu.edu/docs/oaa/4999_form.pdf. Be sure that the final section includes a breakdown by percentage to designate how much each assignment will figure into the final grade (for example, a final paper might comprise 50% of the final grade). Once you have completed the form and signed it, bring it to the English Department main office (923 Langdale Hall), and ask someone at the front desk to leave it in Heather Russel’s mailbox. If you and the professor have a syllabus for the proposed course, you can leave that for Heather as well. She will submit your proposal to the Chair and to the Dean, and she’ll be in touch with their responses.

Once portfolios have been scored, the Department will send the seniors’ names along to the Graduation Office as passing. This step likely takes place just days before graduation, as the faculty generally needs several weeks to review the portfolios. The Department will then process the portfolio results and send seniors a letter or email inviting them to pick up their work.

PLEASE NOTE: the notice on a student’s academic evaluation in GoSOLAR won't change once the portfolio has been scored. The evaluation form simply states that a portfolio is required for graduation; it isn't sensitive enough to know whether someone has actually fulfilled that requirement. If you want to double-check on the status of your portfolio, you can ask Heather Russel at heather@gsu.edu.

Here are some of the most useful pieces of information for undergraduates:

Please note that the creative writing faculty does not allow overflows into filled classes.

If you are interested in Creative Writing/Poetry as your concentration for the English major, please note the following required courses. It is recommended you take them in sequence. You must earn a grade of C or better in each. Note the prerequisites for each class.

If you are interested in Creative Writing/Fiction as your concentration for the English major, please note the following required courses, which you must take in sequence, earning a grade of C or better in each. Note also the prerequisites for each class.

In special cases, the Department of English may allow you to take simultaneously Engl 3180B: Contemporary Fiction Craft and Engl 4310B: Senior Seminar (if there are seats open in both classes), but you will have to get permission to do so.

Contact Heather Russel, Assistant to the Director of Creative Writing, at heather@gsu.edu for more information.

If you are a senior or a second-semester junior, it will be difficult (and perhaps impossible) to complete the fiction or poetry writing course sequence by your anticipated graduation date. Please note that the Literary Studies concentration allows more scheduling flexibility than the Creative Writing concentration. Remember that students can write creatively even when they are not in a creative writing class, and a student pursuing the Literary Studies concentration is welcome to enroll in as many creative writing classes as he or she wishes (as long as the student meets the prerequisites, and the classes have available seats). A student considering graduate study in writing might like to know that very, very few Georgia State graduate students have undergraduate degrees with concentrations in creative writing; in fact, some do not have undergraduate degrees in English.

If you have further questions about the English major and any of the concentrations offered by the Department, you can make an appointment with a Department of English adviser at 404-413-5800.

Students who have taken an introductory creative writing class at a former college may be able to move ahead to the second class in the GSU sequence. Heather Russel, the Assistant to the Director of Creative Writing, can help if you email her at heather@gsu.edu. If you have taken a class elsewhere, email a syllabus and writing samples to her so that the faculty can consider moving you into the second class of the fiction sequence—if there is an open seat.

We do not "overflow" any creative writing classes because we want to ensure a small, vital community in the class, and we want to guarantee that each member of the community receives individual attention from the instructor. (And we fight many battles to keep these numbers low so the students benefit from small, intense classes.) Students should keep an eye on the numbers: people drop and add courses all the time, for various reasons, and a seat might open up.

Please email Dr. Angela Hall-Godsey with your name, Panther number, the course number and CRN, and a description of the problem. If you are a transient or transfer student, include the name of your previous institution.

English majors must submit senior portfolios no later than the official midpoint of the semester in which they intend to graduate. This date is available on the university’s academic calendar. Please see the portfolio requirements for your concentration here for submission instructions.